We bear the consequences of the judgement passed against Adam. We are separated from God and devoid of the indwelling Holy Spirit and left to our natural mortality we are experiencing dissolution.

How does the nature of the condition of our nature that you describe not "miss the mark"?

We're not born responsible for our condition, but we are still born in this condition that came about as a result of our first parents transgression. The only way we can be healed of this condition is through Christ, into Whom we are baptized. We were seperated from God, we are united to Him in baptism. We were devoid of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, part of an Orthodox baptism is being "sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit". We were left to mortality and dissolution, we are given the promise of the resurrection having been buried with Him in baptism.

Unless you think that seperation from God, being devoid of the Holy Spirit, and death and dissolution is the "mark" that God has set for us. The fact is this is all sin. It's a condition and not an act, but it is still against the will of the God who "wills that none should perish".

I would agree, as man was created to be in communion with God: without theosis there is no way to actualize the Image nor progress in the Likeness of Him in Whose Image and Likeness man was made.

I have to look up, but somewhere St. Simeon the New Theologian makes the point that Adam and Eve did die when they ate the fruit, and that they lived like zombies thereafter (not his words, but something to that effect. IIRC, the image he uses has to do with them suffacating from a lack of breath/spirit (both Pneuma in Greek and RuuH in Semitic).

Logged

Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

Except for the fact that it absolutely distorts the teachings of the west in good Romanides Style. It also not surprising to find Father G. translating. He is also well known for his distortions.

However: IF that kind of thing is useful to Orthodox converts in Orthodox America, far be it from me to say don't take that path.

Cheers!!

I wasn't aware that Fr. Romanides was an Orthodox convert in America. You learn something new everyday.

Fr. Romanides (Memory Eternal!) sources his writings. Can you?

Logged

Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

Except for the fact that it absolutely distorts the teachings of the west in good Romanides Style. It also not surprising to find Father G. translating. He is also well known for his distortions.

However: IF that kind of thing is useful to Orthodox converts in Orthodox America, far be it from me to say don't take that path.

Cheers!!

I was referring more to the quote that it contains from St Cyril specifically.

It is difficult to reconcile the quote from St. Cyril and the rest of the presentation in the final paragraph, without suggesting that distancing one's self from the west is far more important that seeking the truth.

Though not ontologically linked, neither are they mutually exclusive.

The final paragraph is spot on on Anselm, both on what led up to him, and what he led to (for one thing, Calvinism's T.U.L.I.P)

Logged

Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

Actually no one but the OP has really phrased this is an 'anti-' or even 'compared to' Latin thing. Most of the responses have simply focused on discussing what the actual Orthodox/Patristic teaching is--and neither St. Cyril nor St. Athanasius were influenced by Anti-Latin or Anti-Calvin concerns.

As for what difference if Original Sin= 'corruptible' vs. 'corrupt' makes:If the impact of the Fall is simply that human nature was divided from the Divine -- which seperation results in corruptibility (at both a physical and moral level), then that means Christ as perfect God and perfect man, in His single Person wipes out that divide. He's not subject to Original Sin by definition.

If Original Sin=human nature is inherently corrupt, then additional intellectual exercises are necessary to explain how Christ could assume *our* human nature but His human nature was not corrupt.

of course, that brings up another problem on the Latin side, the IC: if she was IC'd, then there is no reason why she should die. Of course, the Latin Immortalists have no problem bringing that to its logical conclusion.

That is not true. All humanity is subject to death, by nature. The Immaculate Conception is a preservation from the spiritual death that is a consequence of the ancestral sin.

She is preserved from having a darkened intellect and a weakened will, which is the result of the loss of original justice, but that is a spiritual loss.

We die after we are baptised into Christ. We die even after Jesus tramples down death by death.

She is not preserved from being human and human beings die. She was preserved from corruption by another act of grace at the time of her Assumption where, after she died, she was taken bodily into heaven.

I will be blunt. If I were back in the academy working, and I read one of Father John's treatises on the west, I would call him, in any review that I might do, an intellectual fraud. He pads his texts with half truths and whole lies. It's a mess trying to read him and he is largely ignored outside of a few Orthodox who think he walks on water.

FABRICATIONS ABOUT PROF JOHN S. ROMANIDES by CAPUCHINO PRIEST IANNI SPITERI Response by Prof. George Metallinos of The University of Athens

Grievous fabrications about Father John S. Romanides, retired professor of the University of Thessaloniki, come from the pen of the Capuchin Priest Prof. Yannis Spiteris...[who]...1)...was born and lives on the Greek Island of Corfu. 2) He teaches Theology at a theological school in Rome. 3) He is the personal advisor to the Pope himself on Greek Orthodox Theology. Father Spiteris writes with the intention of not only informing Latins, but also the Orthodox WHICH theologians they should follow. Evidently the Vatican has problems with J. Romanides' theological and historical research....

He resigned from Holy Cross in 1965 in protest over the removal of Father Georges Florovsky from the faculty by Archbishop Iacovos. Between 1965 and 1968 Father Romanides served as the pastor of Holy Apostles' Parish in Haverhill, Mass

And Fr. Rominides was on the Joint Commission of the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches. Don't think that they thought he walked on water, but they didn't (and don't) ignore him either.

Logged

Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

I will be blunt. If I were back in the academy working, and I read one of Father John's treatises on the west, I would call him, in any review that I might do, an intellectual fraud. He pads his texts with half truths and whole lies. It's a mess trying to read him and he is largely ignored outside of a few Orthodox who think he walks on water.

FABRICATIONS ABOUT PROF JOHN S. ROMANIDES by CAPUCHINO PRIEST IANNI SPITERI Response by Prof. George Metallinos of The University of Athens

Grievous fabrications about Father John S. Romanides, retired professor of the University of Thessaloniki, come from the pen of the Capuchin Priest Prof. Yannis Spiteris...[who]...1)...was born and lives on the Greek Island of Corfu. 2) He teaches Theology at a theological school in Rome. 3) He is the personal advisor to the Pope himself on Greek Orthodox Theology. Father Spiteris writes with the intention of not only informing Latins, but also the Orthodox WHICH theologians they should follow. Evidently the Vatican has problems with J. Romanides' theological and historical research....

He resigned from Holy Cross in 1965 in protest over the removal of Father Georges Florovsky from the faculty by Archbishop Iacovos. Between 1965 and 1968 Father Romanides served as the pastor of Holy Apostles' Parish in Haverhill, Mass

And Fr. Rominides was on the Joint Commission of the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches. Don't think that they thought he walked on water, but they didn't (and don't) ignore him either.

The priest's historical work was a mess. I certainly will ignore him. There's too much to read and learn that IS good and IS reliable and IS accurate to waste time with a bitter pill like Father John.

Keep him...venerate him...canonize him...I don't care. I don't like his work because it looks either foolish or dishonest and I don't care which it is frankly.

Actually no one but the OP has really phrased this is an 'anti-' or even 'compared to' Latin thing. Most of the responses have simply focused on discussing what the actual Orthodox/Patristic teaching is--and neither St. Cyril nor St. Athanasius were influenced by Anti-Latin or Anti-Calvin concerns.

As for what difference if Original Sin= 'corruptible' vs. 'corrupt' makes:If the impact of the Fall is simply that human nature was divided from the Divine -- which seperation results in corruptibility (at both a physical and moral level), then that means Christ as perfect God and perfect man, in His single Person wipes out that divide. He's not subject to Original Sin by definition.

If Original Sin=human nature is inherently corrupt, then additional intellectual exercises are necessary to explain how Christ could assume *our* human nature but His human nature was not corrupt.

of course, that brings up another problem on the Latin side, the IC: if she was IC'd, then there is no reason why she should die. Of course, the Latin Immortalists have no problem bringing that to its logical conclusion.

That is not true. All humanity is subject to death, by nature. The Immaculate Conception is a preservation from the spiritual death that is a consequence of the ancestral sin.

The Early Church Fathers on the Immaculate Conception - Catholic/Orthodox CaucusStay Catholic ^

Posted on Sunday, February 11, 2007 5:54:59 PM by NYer

The Early Church Fathers believed that Mary was full of grace and thus sinless....

Hippolytus

He [Jesus] was the ark formed of incorruptible wood. For by this is signified that His tabernacle [Mary] was exempt from defilement and corruption (Orat. In Illud, Dominus pascit me, in Gallandi, Bibl. Patrum, II, 496 ante [A.D. 235]).

Gregory Nazianzen

He was conceived by the virgin, who had been first purified by the Spirit in soul and body; for, as it was fitting that childbearing should receive its share of honor, so it was necessary that virginity should receive even greater honor (Sermon 38 [d. A.D. 390]).

Theodotus of Ancrya

A virgin, innocent, spotless, free of all defect, untouched, unsullied, holy in soul and body, like a lily sprouting among thorns (Homily 6:11[ante A.D. 446]).

And here the false syllogism gets its start.

This is a false statement?

Mary

It does not follow from that she was full of grace that she was therefore sinless, much less without ancestral sin, any more than for St. Stephen (Acts 6:, or SS Elizabeth and Zachariah being "blamelss" (Lk 1:6) made them immaculate.

You cannot count Christ with the "fallen ones".. Christ is the only one that came out of heaven(John 3:13;1Cor 15:47).

This line that you are following here falls quickly off to one side or the other, Nestor or Arius.

Jesus took flesh from the Theotokos...corruptible flesh, capable of aging and of death.

The Immaculate Conception only refers to a spiritual freedom from the stain of original sin, not a physical freedom from ALL of the consequences of original sin, including death, pain and the possibility of corruption. She was preserved, as a virgin, from the pain of child birth. And she was preserved from bodily corruption upon her death by being raised up and assumed into heaven.

No, just bringing out the difficulty of pinning you down for authoritative statements, and getting you to recognize the plain language of dogmatic statements (like the Magesterial Pronouncement of the Fifth Ecumenical Council: sorry, neither we nor the Vatican are the court of appeal from an Ecumenical Council), let alone the plain language of pronouncements on the IC.

Well, the "plain language" of the IC, if you want to debate it, should be interpreted according to the magisterial interpretations of the CC, not according to the whimsical interpretations of NON-Catholics, wouldn't you agree?

How about the learned interpretation of Catholics not in communion with the Vatican, bases on your magisterial inerpratations?

Seriously -- the fact that you do not actually read my response makes your claims lose all credibility. I already stated, specifically, that the "stain" of original sin does not refer to any of the tactile effects of the Fall, but only to the spiritual effects. I don't know how you can assume I claimed that death is not a consequence of the Fall.

Let me spell this out more slowly:

The Fall had two consequences for mankind - 1) tactile/physical effects which include bodily/emotional infirmities, corruption and death. 2) spiritual effects which include loss of sanctifying grace, loss of original justice, and concupiscence.

In the Decree on Original Sin at the Council of Trent, the Church defined that in Baptism, mankind is "made innocent, without stain, pure...beloved sons of God."

Do you see the word "stain" in the definition, Father? Do you see the connection? "Stain" refers to the SPIRITUAL consequences of original sin, NOT the physical/tactile consequences (unless your innovative polemics are now going to claim that the Catholic Church teaches that Baptism means we can no longer die).

So when the dogma of the IC states that Mary was preserved from all STAIN of original sin, it is referring exclusively to the SPIRITUAL consequences of original sin, and is not making any reference to the physical/tactile consequences. In other words, the dogma of the IC is not claiming that the Graces Mary received at the moment of the Immaculate Conception somehow freed her from death, or physical/emotional infirmities, or bodily corruption, etc.

Your fine distinction in the IC are not found in Ineffibilus Deus. Are they a refinement?

Quote

SUPREME REASON FOR THE PRIVILEGE: THE DIVINE MATERNITY

And indeed it was wholly fitting that so wonderful a mother should be ever resplendent with the glory of most sublime holiness and so completely free from all taint of original sin that she would triumph utterly over the ancient serpent. To her did the Father will to give his only-begotten Son -- the Son whom, equal to the Father and begotten by him, the Father loves from his heart -- and to give this Son in such a way that he would be the one and the same common Son of God the Father and of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was she whom the Son himself chose to make his Mother and it was from her that the Holy Spirit willed and brought it about that he should be conceived and born from whom he himself proceeds.[1]

Nice inclusion of the error of the Filioque.

This of course, is the supreme problem for your read of the IC:Mary becomes Theotokos through her body.

Quote

The Fathers and writers of the Church, well versed in the heavenly Scriptures, had nothing more at heart than to vie with one another in preaching and teaching in many wonderful ways the Virgin's supreme sanctity, dignity, and immunity from all stain of sin, and her renowned victory over the most foul enemy of the human race. This they did in the books they wrote to explain the Scriptures, to vindicate the dogmas, and to instruct the faithful. These ecclesiastical writers in quoting the words by which at the beginning of the world God announced his merciful remedies prepared for the regeneration of mankind -- words by which he crushed the audacity of the deceitful serpent and wondrously raised up the hope of our race, saying, "I will put enmities between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed"[13] -- taught that by this divine prophecy the merciful Redeemer of mankind, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, was clearly foretold: That his most Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, was prophetically indicated; and, at the same time, the very enmity of both against the evil one was significantly expressed. Hence, just as Christ, the Mediator between God and man, assumed human nature, blotted the handwriting of the decree that stood against us, and fastened it triumphantly to the cross, so the most holy Virgin, united with him by a most intimate and indissoluble bond, was, with him and through him, eternally at enmity with the evil serpent, and most completely triumphed over him, and thus crushed his head with her immaculate foot.[14]

Based on the Vulgate's mistransaltion of Genesis 3:15 (something the IC believers by the score still ignore).

Quote

As if these splendid eulogies and tributes were not sufficient, the Fathers proclaimed with particular and definite statements that when one treats of sin, the holy Virgin Mary is not even to be mentioned; for to her more grace was given than was necessary to conquer sin completely.[24] They also declared that the most glorious Virgin was Reparatrix of the first parents, the giver of life to posterity; that she was chosen before the ages, prepared for himself by the Most High, foretold by God when he said to the serpent, "I will put enmities between you and the woman."[25] -- unmistakable evidence that she crushed the poisonous head of the serpent. And hence they affirmed that the Blessed Virgin was, through grace, entirely free from every stain of sin, and from all corruption of body, soul and mind; that she was always united with God and joined to him by an eternal covenant; that she was never in darkness but always in light; and that, therefore, she was entirely a fit habitation for Christ, not because of the state of her body, but because of her original grace.

They testified, too, that the flesh of the Virgin, although derived from Adam, did not contract the stains of Adam, and that on this account the most Blessed Virgin was the tabernacle created by God himself and formed by the Holy Spirit, truly a work in royal purple, adorned and woven with gold, which that new Beseleel made. They affirmed that the same Virgin is, and is deservedly, the first and especial work of God, escaping the fiery arrows the evil one; that she is beautiful by nature and entirely free from all stain; that at her Immaculate Conception she came into the world all radiant like the dawn. For it was certainly not fitting that this vessel of election should be wounded by the common injuries, since she, differing so much from the others, had only nature in common with them, not sin. In fact, it was quite fitting that, as the Only-Begotten has a Father in heaven, whom the Seraphim extol as thrice holy, so he should have a Mother on earth who would never be without the splendor of holiness.

This doctrine so filled the minds and souls of our ancestors in the faith that a singular and truly marvelous style of speech came into vogue among them. They have frequently addressed the Mother of God as immaculate, as immaculate in every respect; innocent, and verily most innocent; spotless, and entirely spotless; holy and removed from every stain of sin; all pure, all stainless, the very model of purity and innocence; more beautiful than beauty, more lovely than loveliness; more holy than holiness, singularly holy and most pure in soul and body; the one who surpassed all integrity and virginity; the only one who has become the dwelling place of all the graces of the most Holy Spirit. God alone excepted, Mary is more excellent than all, and by nature fair and beautiful, and more holy than the Cherubim and Seraphim. To praise her all the tongues of heaven and earth do not suffice.

And then, there is the problem of squaring your read of the IC with Munificentissimus Deus:

Quote

3. Actually God, who from all eternity regards Mary with a most favorable and unique affection, has "when the fullness of time came"(2) put the plan of his providence into effect in such a way that all the privileges and prerogatives he had granted to her in his sovereign generosity were to shine forth in her in a kind of perfect harmony. And, although the Church has always recognized this supreme generosity and the perfect harmony of graces and has daily studied them more and more throughout the course of the centuries, still it is in our own age that the privilege of the bodily Assumption into heaven of Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, has certainly shone forth more clearly.

4. That privilege has shone forth in new radiance since our predecessor of immortal memory, Pius IX, solemnly proclaimed the dogma of the loving Mother of God's Immaculate Conception. These two privileges are most closely bound to one another. Christ overcame sin and death by his own death, and one who through Baptism has been born again in a supernatural way has conquered sin and death through the same Christ. Yet, according to the general rule, God does not will to grant to the just the full effect of the victory over death until the end of time has come. And so it is that the bodies of even the just are corrupted after death, and only on the last day will they be joined, each to its own glorious soul.

5. Now God has willed that the Blessed Virgin Mary should be exempted from this general rule. She, by an entirely unique privilege, completely overcame sin by her Immaculate Conception, and as a result she was not subject to the law of remaining in the corruption of the grave, and she did not have to wait until the end of time for the redemption of her body.

6. Thus, when it was solemnly proclaimed that Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, was from the very beginning free from the taint of original sin, the minds of the faithful were filled with a stronger hope that the day might soon come when the dogma of the Virgin Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven would also be defined by the Church's supreme teaching authority.

12. But those whom "the Holy Spirit has placed as bishops to rule the Church of God"(4) gave an almost unanimous affirmative response to both these questions. This "outstanding agreement of the Catholic prelates and the faithful,"(5) affirming that the bodily Assumption of God's Mother into heaven can be defined as a dogma of faith, since it shows us the concordant teaching of the Church's ordinary doctrinal authority and the concordant faith of the Christian people which the same doctrinal authority sustains and directs, thus by itself and in an entirely certain and infallible way, manifests this privilege as a truth revealed by God and contained in that divine deposit which Christ has delivered to his Spouse to be guarded faithfully and to be taught infallibly.(6) Certainly this teaching authority of the Church, not by any merely human effort but under the protection of the Spirit of Truth,(7) and therefore absolutely without error, carries out the commission entrusted to it, that of preserving the revealed truths pure and entire throughout every age, in such a way that it presents them undefiled, adding nothing to them and taking nothing away from them. For, as the Vatican Council teaches, "the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter in such a way that, by his revelation, they might manifest new doctrine, but so that, by his assistance, they might guard as sacred and might faithfully propose the revelation delivered through the apostles, or the deposit of faith."( Thus, from the universal agreement of the Church's ordinary teaching authority we have a certain and firm proof, demonstrating that the Blessed Virgin Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven- which surely no faculty of the human mind could know by its own natural powers, as far as the heavenly glorification of the virginal body of the loving Mother of God is concerned-is a truth that has been revealed by God and consequently something that must be firmly and faithfully believed by all children of the Church. For, as the Vatican Council asserts, "all those things are to be believed by divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the written Word of God or in Tradition, and which are proposed by the Church, either in solemn judgment or in its ordinary and universal teaching office, as divinely revealed truths which must be believed."(9)

14. Christ's faithful, through the teaching and the leadership of their pastors, have learned from the sacred books that the Virgin Mary, throughout the course of her earthly pilgrimage, led a life troubled by cares, hardships, and sorrows, and that, moreover, what the holy old man Simeon had foretold actually came to pass, that is, that a terribly sharp sword pierced her heart as she stood under the cross of her divine Son, our Redeemer. In the same way, it was not difficult for them to admit that the great Mother of God, like her only begotten Son, had actually passed from this life. But this in no way prevented them from believing and from professing openly that her sacred body had never been subject to the corruption of the tomb, and that the august tabernacle of the Divine Word had never been reduced to dust and ashes. Actually, enlightened by divine grace and moved by affection for her, God's Mother and our own dearest Mother, they have contemplated in an ever clearer light the wonderful harmony and order of those privileges which the most provident God has lavished upon this loving associate of our Redeemer, privileges which reach such an exalted plane that, except for her, nothing created by God other than the human nature of Jesus Christ has ever reached this level.

17. In the liturgical books which deal with the feast either of the dormition or of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin there are expressions that agree in testifying that, when the Virgin Mother of God passed from this earthly exile to heaven, what happened to her sacred body was, by the decree of divine Providence, in keeping with the dignity of the Mother of the Word Incarnate, and with the other privileges she had been accorded. Thus, to cite an illustrious example, this is set forth in that sacramentary which Adrian I, our predecessor of immortal memory, sent to the Emperor Charlemagne. These words are found in this volume: "Venerable to us, O Lord, is the festivity of this day on which the holy Mother of God suffered temporal death, but still could not be kept down by the bonds of death, who has begotten your Son our Lord incarnate from herself."(11)

18. What is here indicated in that sobriety characteristic of the Roman liturgy is presented more clearly and completely in other ancient liturgical books. To take one as an example, the Gallican sacramentary designates this privilege of Mary's as "an ineffable mystery all the more worthy of praise as the Virgin's Assumption is something unique among men." And, in the Byzantine liturgy, not only is the Virgin Mary's bodily Assumption connected time and time again with the dignity of the Mother of God, but also with the other privileges, and in particular with the virginal motherhood granted her by a singular decree of God's Providence. "God, the King of the universe, has granted you favors that surpass nature. As he kept you a virgin in childbirth, thus he has kept your body incorrupt in the tomb and has glorified it by his divine act of transferring it from the tomb."(12)

20. However, since the liturgy of the Church does not engender the Catholic faith, but rather springs from it, in such a way that the practices of the sacred worship proceed from the faith as the fruit comes from the tree, it follows that the holy Fathers and the great Doctors, in the homilies and sermons they gave the people on this feast day, did not draw their teaching from the feast itself as from a primary source, but rather they spoke of this doctrine as something already known and accepted by Christ's faithful. They presented it more clearly. They offered more profound explanations of its meaning and nature, bringing out into sharper light the fact that this feast shows, not only that the dead body of the Blessed Virgin Mary remained incorrupt, but that she gained a triumph out of death, her heavenly glorification after the example of her only begotten Son, Jesus Christ-truths that the liturgical books had frequently touched upon concisely and briefly.

21. Thus St. John Damascene, an outstanding herald of this traditional truth, spoke out with powerful eloquence when he compared the bodily Assumption of the loving Mother of God with her other prerogatives and privileges. "It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death. It was fitting that she, who had carried the Creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles. It was fitting that the spouse, whom the Father had taken to himself, should live in the divine mansions. It was fitting that she, who had seen her Son upon the cross and who had thereby received into her heart the sword of sorrow which she had escaped in the act of giving birth to him, should look upon him as he sits with the Father. It was fitting that God's Mother should possess what belongs to her Son, and that she should be honored by every creature as the Mother and as the handmaid of God."(17)

22. These words of St. John Damascene agree perfectly with what others have taught on this same subject. Statements no less clear and accurate are to be found in sermons delivered by Fathers of an earlier time or of the same period, particularly on the occasion of this feast. And so, to cite some other examples, St. Germanus of Constantinople considered the fact that the body of Mary, the virgin Mother of God, was incorrupt and had been taken up into heaven to be in keeping, not only with her divine motherhood, but also with the special holiness of her virginal body. "You are she who, as it is written, appears in beauty, and your virginal body is all holy, all chaste, entirely the dwelling place of God, so that it is henceforth completely exempt from dissolution into dust. Though still human, it is changed into the heavenly life of incorruptibility, truly living and glorious, undamaged and sharing in perfect life."(18) And another very ancient writer asserts: "As the most glorious Mother of Christ, our Savior and God and the giver of life and immortality, has been endowed with life by him, she has received an eternal incorruptibility of the body together with him who has raised her up from the tomb and has taken her up to himself in a way known only to him."(19)

26. Often there are theologians and preachers who, following in the footsteps of the holy Fathers,(20) have been rather free in their use of events and expressions taken from Sacred Scripture to explain their belief in the Assumption. Thus, to mention only a few of the texts rather frequently cited in this fashion, some have employed the words of the psalmist: "Arise, O Lord, into your resting place: you and the ark, which you have sanctified"(21); and have looked upon the Ark of the Covenant, built of incorruptible wood and placed in the Lord's temple, as a type of the most pure body of the Virgin Mary, preserved and exempt from all the corruption of the tomb and raised up to such glory in heaven. Treating of this subject, they also describe her as the Queen entering triumphantly into the royal halls of heaven and sitting at the right hand of the divine Redeemer.(22) Likewise they mention the Spouse of the Canticles "that goes up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh and frankincense" to be crowned.(23) These are proposed as depicting that heavenly Queen and heavenly Spouse who has been lifted up to the courts of heaven with the divine Bridegroom.

28. Thus, during the earliest period of scholastic theology, that most pious man, Amadeus, Bishop of Lausarme, held that the Virgin Mary's flesh had remained incorrupt-for it is wrong to believe that her body has seen corruption-because it was really united again to her soul and, together with it, crowned with great glory in the heavenly courts. "For she was full of grace and blessed among women. She alone merited to conceive the true God of true God, whom as a virgin, she brought forth, to whom as a virgin she gave milk, fondling him in her lap, and in all things she waited upon him with loving care."(26)

29. Among the holy writers who at that time employed statements and various images and analogies of Sacred Scripture to Illustrate and to confirm the doctrine of the Assumption, which was piously believed, the Evangelical Doctor, St. Anthony of Padua, holds a special place. On the feast day of the Assumption, while explaining the prophet's words: "I will glorify the place of my feet,"(27) he stated it as certain that the divine Redeemer had bedecked with supreme glory his most beloved Mother from whom he had received human flesh. He asserts that "you have here a clear statement that the Blessed Virgin has been assumed in her body, where was the place of the Lord's feet. Hence it is that the holy Psalmist writes: 'Arise, O Lord, into your resting place: you and the ark which you have sanctified."' And he asserts that, just as Jesus Christ has risen from the death over which he triumphed and has ascended to the right hand of the Father, so likewise the ark of his sanctification "has risen up, since on this day the Virgin Mother has been taken up to her heavenly dwelling."(28)

30. When, during the Middle Ages, scholastic theology was especially flourishing, St. Albert the Great who, to establish this teaching, had gathered together many proofs from Sacred Scripture, from the statements of older writers, and finally from the liturgy and from what is known as theological reasoning, concluded in this way: "From these proofs and authorities and from many others, it is manifest that the most blessed Mother of God has been assumed above the choirs of angels. And this we believe in every way to be true."(29) And, in a sermon which he delivered on the sacred day of the Blessed Virgin Mary's annunciation, explained the words "Hail, full of grace"-words used by the angel who addressed her-the Universal Doctor, comparing the Blessed Virgin with Eve, stated clearly and incisively that she was exempted from the fourfold curse that had been laid upon Eve.(30)

31. Following the footsteps of his distinguished teacher, the Angelic Doctor, despite the fact that he never dealt directly with this question, nevertheless, whenever he touched upon it, always held together with the Catholic Church, that Mary's body had been assumed into heaven along with her soul.(31)

32. Along with many others, the Seraphic Doctor held the same views. He considered it as entirely certain that, as God had preserved the most holy Virgin Mary from the violation of her virginal purity and integrity in conceiving and in childbirth, he would never have permitted her body to have been resolved into dust and ashes.(32) Explaining these words of Sacred Scripture: "Who is this that comes up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved?"(33) and applying them in a kind of accommodated sense to the Blessed Virgin, he reasons thus: "From this we can see that she is there bodily...her blessedness would not have been complete unless she were there as a person. The soul is not a person, but the soul, joined to the body, is a person. It is manifest that she is there in soul and in body. Otherwise she would not possess her complete beatitude.(34)

33. In the fifteenth century, during a later period of scholastic theology, St. Bernardine of Siena collected and diligently evaluated all that the medieval theologians had said and taught on this question. He was not content with setting down the principal considerations which these writers of an earlier day had already expressed, but he added others of his own. The likeness between God's Mother and her divine Son, in the way of the nobility and dignity of body and of soul - a likeness that forbids us to think of the heavenly Queen as being separated from the heavenly King - makes it entirely imperative that Mary "should be only where Christ is."(35) Moreover, it is reasonable and fitting that not only the soul and body of a man, but also the soul and body of a woman should have obtained heavenly glory. Finally, since the Church has never looked for the bodily relics of the Blessed Virgin nor proposed them for the veneration of the people, we have a proof on the order of a sensible experience.(36)

34. The above-mentioned teachings of the holy Fathers and of the Doctors have been in common use during more recent times. Gathering together the testimonies of the Christians of earlier days, St. Robert Bellarmine exclaimed: "And who, I ask, could believe that the ark of holiness, the dwelling place of the Word of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit, could be reduced to ruin? My soul is filled with horror at the thought that this virginal flesh which had begotten God, had brought him into the world, had nourished and carried him, could have been turned into ashes or given over to be food for worms."(37)

35. In like manner St. Francis de Sales, after asserting that it is wrong to doubt that Jesus Christ has himself observed, in the most perfect way, the divine commandment by which children are ordered to honor their parents, asks this question: "What son would not bring his mother back to life and would not bring her into paradise after her death if he could?"(38) And St. Alphonsus writes that "Jesus did not wish to have the body of Mary corrupted after death, since it would have redounded to his own dishonor to have her virginal flesh, from which he himself had assumed flesh, reduced to dust."(39)

36. Once the mystery which is commemorated in this feast had been placed in its proper light, there were not lacking teachers who, instead of dealing with the theological reasonings that show why it is fitting and right to believe the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven, chose to focus their mind and attention on the faith of the Church itself, which is the Mystical Body of Christ without stain or wrinkle(40) and is called by the Apostle "the pillar and ground of truth."(41) Relying on this common faith, they considered the teaching opposed to the doctrine of our Lady's Assumption as temerarious, if not heretical. Thus, like not a few others, St. Peter Canisius, after he had declared that the very word "assumption" signifies the glorification, not only of the soul but also of the body, and that the Church has venerated and has solemnly celebrated this mystery of Mary's Assumption for many centuries, adds these words of warning: "This teaching has already been accepted for some centuries, it has been held as certain in the minds of the pious people, and it has been taught to the entire Church in such a way that those who deny that Mary's body has been assumed into heaven are not to be listened to patiently but are everywhere to be denounced as over-contentious or rash men, and as imbued with a spirit that is heretical rather than Catholic."(42)

37. At the same time the great Suarez was professing in the field of mariology the norm that "keeping in mind the standards of propriety, and when there is no contradiction or repugnance on the part of Scripture, the mysteries of grace which God has wrought in the Virgin must be measured, not by the ordinary laws, but by the divine omnipotence."(43) Supported by the common faith of the entire Church on the subject of the mystery of the Assumption, he could conclude that this mystery was to be believed with the same firmness of assent as that given to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. Thus he already held that such truths could be defined.

38. All these proofs and considerations of the holy Fathers and the theologians are based upon the Sacred Writings as their ultimate foundation. These set the loving Mother of God as it were before our very eyes as most intimately joined to her divine Son and as always sharing his lot. Consequently it seems impossible to think of her, the one who conceived Christ, brought him forth, nursed him with her milk, held him in her arms, and clasped him to her breast, as being apart from him in body, even though not in soul, after this earthly life. Since our Redeemer is the Son of Mary, he could not do otherwise, as the perfect observer of God's law, than to honor, not only his eternal Father, but also his most beloved Mother. And, since it was within his power to grant her this great honor, to preserve her from the corruption of the tomb, we must believe that he really acted in this way.

potuit, decuit ergo fecit all over again.

Quote

39. We must remember especially that, since the second century, the Virgin Mary has been designated by the holy Fathers as the new Eve, who, although subject to the new Adam, is most intimately associated with him in that struggle against the infernal foe which, as foretold in the protoevangelium,(44) would finally result in that most complete victory over the sin and death which are always mentioned together in the writings of the Apostle of the Gentiles.(45) Consequently, just as the glorious resurrection of Christ was an essential part and the final sign of this victory, so that struggle which was common to the Blessed Virgin and her divine Son should be brought to a close by the glorification of her virginal body, for the same Apostle says: "When this mortal thing hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory."(46)

40. Hence the revered Mother of God, from all eternity joined in a hidden way with Jesus Christ in one and the same decree of predestination,(47) immaculate in her conception, a most perfect virgin in her divine motherhood, the noble associate of the divine Redeemer who has won a complete triumph over sin and its consequences, finally obtained, as the supreme culmination of her privileges, that she should be preserved free from the corruption of the tomb and that, like her own Son, having overcome death, she might be taken up body and soul to the glory of heaven where, as Queen, she sits in splendor at the right hand of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages.(48)44. For which reason, after we have poured forth prayers of supplication again and again to God, and have invoked the light of the Spirit of Truth, for the glory of Almighty God who has lavished his special affection upon the Virgin Mary, for the honor of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages and the Victor over sin and death, for the increase of the glory of that same august Mother, and for the joy and exultation of the entire Church; by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.

And then, what about the interpretation of those canonized by the Vatican, and those who teach with its authority?

I am afraid this is NOT an inaccurate understanding of the immaculate Comecption:

Quote

The Immaculate Conception and the Co-redemptrix Written by Mark Miravalle December 01 2007 Page 1 of 6On February 17, 1941, the "Property" of the Immaculata, Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, was arrested by the Nazi Gestapo, eventually leading to his martyrdom in Auschwitz. During the few hours before his arrest, Fr. Maximilian was inspired to write the heart of his unparalleled mariological ponderings regarding the "Immaculate Conception."

The following are excerpts from this last written testimony:

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION: These words fell from the lips of the Immaculata herself. Hence, they must tell us in the most precise and essential manner who she really is.

Since human words are incapable of expressing divine realities, it follows that these words: "Immaculate," and "Conception" must be understood in a much more beautiful and sublime meaning than usual: a meaning beyond that which human reason at its most penetrating, commonly gives to them . . . Who then are you, O Immaculate Conception?

Not God, of course, because he has no beginning. Not an angel, created directly out of nothing. Not Adam, formed out of the dust of the earth (Gen. 2:7). Not Eve, molded from Adam's rib (Gen. 2:21). Not the Incarnate Word, who exists before all ages, and of whom we should use the word "conceived" rather than "conception." Humans do not exist before their conception, so we might call them created "conception." But you, O Mary, are different from all other children of Eve. They are conceptions stained by original sin; whereas you are the unique Immaculate Conception.

. . . Creatures, by following the natural law implanted in them by God, reach their perfection, become like him, and go back to him. Intelligent creatures love him in a conscious manner; through this love they unite themselves more and more closely with him, and so find their way back to him. The creature most completely filled with this love, with God himself, was the Immaculata, who never contracted the slightest stain of sin, who never departed in the least from God's will. United to the Holy Spirit as his spouse, she is one with God in an incomparably more perfect way than can be predicated of any other creature.

What sort of union is this? It is above all an interior union, a union of her essence with the "essence" of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in her, lives in her. This was true from the first instance of her existence. It is always true; it will always be true.

In what does this life of the Spirit in Mary consist? He himself is uncreated Love in her; the Love of the Father and of the Son, the Love by which God loves himself, the very love of the Most Holy Trinity. He is a fruitful Love, a "Conception." Among creatures made in God's image the union brought about by married love is the most intimate of all (cf. Mt. 19:6). In a much more precise, more interior, more essential manner, the Holy Spirit lives in the soul of the Immaculata, in the depths of her very being. He makes her fruitful, from the very instance of her existence, all during her life, and for all eternity.

This eternal "Immaculate Conception" (which is the Holy Spirit) produces in an immaculate manner divine life itself in the womb (or depths) of Mary's soul, making her the Immaculate Conception, the human Immaculate Conception. And the virginal womb of Mary's body is kept sacred for him; there he conceives in time—because everything that is material occurs in time—the human life of the Man-God. (1)

In a 1933 Letter from Nagasaki, St. Maximilian explains further that in the name, "Immaculate Conception," the Mother also gives us the secret of her very nature:

In her apparition at Lourdes she does not say: "I was conceived immaculately," but "I am the Immaculate Conception." This points out not only the fact that she was conceived without original sin, but also the manner in which this privilege belongs to her. It is not something accidental; it is something that belongs to her very nature. For she is Immaculate Conception in (her very) person. (2)

The uncreated Immaculate Conception and the created Immaculate Conception. The Divine Spirit and the human spouse perfected in His grace are united by an interior, essential union. Uncreated love conceives and dwells within the depths of her soul, and she becomes His quasi-incarnation. (3) For this reason, as St. Maximilian tells us, Mary is also the Mediatrix of all graces and gifts of the Spirit:

The union between the Immaculata and the Holy Spirit is so inexpressible, yet so perfect, that the Holy Spirit acts only by the Most Blessed Virgin, his Spouse. This is why she is Mediatrix of all grace given by the Holy Spirit. And since every grace is a gift of God the Father through the Son and by the Holy Spirit, it follows that there is no grace which Mary cannot dispose of as her own, which is not given to her for this purpose. (4)

Does St. Maximilian go too far in speaking in this manner of the wonders of the Immaculate Conception? Or does he say too little? The Mariology disclosed by the saint of the Immaculata, generous and profound as it is, in no way exhausts the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. His unrivaled pneumatological discoveries prepare the way for a new comprehension of the inseparability of the Uncreated Immaculate Conception with the created Immaculate Conception. But the mystery continues. The brilliance of St. Maximilian's methodology in his return to Trinitarian Mariology specific to the Holy Spirit also propels us to ponder more deeply the other relationships of the Immaculata with her Triune God.

Perhaps least developed of these, from a Trinitarian perspective, is the relationship between the Immaculate Conception and the Heavenly Father. The Father-daughter relationship is one of the most precious of human relationships, and no other relationship captures more the love of the Creator for creation, and the appropriate reciprocal love of creation for the Creator than the relationship between the Eternal Father and Mary Immaculate. At the heart of this union of Perfect Daughter to Perfect Father, which represents and exemplifies how every creature should be united to its Creator, is the stainlessness and fullness of grace possessed by the Immaculate Daughter. This "stainless-fullness" is given to her by the Eternal Father through the Spirit and in view of the foreseen merits of the Son, which is the foundation of her perfect response of fiat-love to everything given to her and asked of her by her "Abba," God the Father of all mankind.

As the example of St. Maximilian makes clear, the dogmatic proclamation of the Immaculate Conception in 1854 does not end its doctrinal development, but rather encourages more unveiling and more appreciation of its sacred mystery. Certainly Contemporary Mariology would do well to follow the example of St. Maximilian in striving to incorporate a more Trinitarian perspective and methodology in relation to the Blessed Virgin if we seek to be true to the full glory of Mary Immaculate....

She is preserved from having a darkened intellect and a weakened will, which is the result of the loss of original justice, but that is a spiritual loss.

We die after we are baptised into Christ. We die even after Jesus tramples down death by death.

She is not preserved from being human and human beings die. She was preserved from corruption by another act of grace at the time of her Assumption where, after she died, she was taken bodily into heaven.

Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

That is not true. All humanity is subject to death, by nature. The Immaculate Conception is a preservation from the spiritual death that is a consequence of the ancestral sin.

Ineffibilis Deus and Muntificentissimus Deus make the conection. We had that all out with Mardukm and his odd ideas, which you replicate here, in ignoring the plan text of your magisterial texts:

This is baloney. The teaching of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption are two separate teachings about two separate graces given to the Mother of God.

The preservation of the Immaculate Conception, had it been both a spiritual and material preservation of her human nature, would have precluded any need for the second grace of the Assumption.

We die and rot even though we have been baptised into life by the Incarnation who trampled down death by death. However holy we become, we rot. Some few are preserved but they are not always the most holy and it is by a particular grace that they do not rot away to dust.

Your critique does not hold up. I know you need it to so I don't expect you to change but you really are wrong.

I will be blunt. If I were back in the academy working, and I read one of Father John's treatises on the west, I would call him, in any review that I might do, an intellectual fraud. He pads his texts with half truths and whole lies. It's a mess trying to read him and he is largely ignored outside of a few Orthodox who think he walks on water.

FABRICATIONS ABOUT PROF JOHN S. ROMANIDES by CAPUCHINO PRIEST IANNI SPITERI Response by Prof. George Metallinos of The University of Athens

Grievous fabrications about Father John S. Romanides, retired professor of the University of Thessaloniki, come from the pen of the Capuchin Priest Prof. Yannis Spiteris...[who]...1)...was born and lives on the Greek Island of Corfu. 2) He teaches Theology at a theological school in Rome. 3) He is the personal advisor to the Pope himself on Greek Orthodox Theology. Father Spiteris writes with the intention of not only informing Latins, but also the Orthodox WHICH theologians they should follow. Evidently the Vatican has problems with J. Romanides' theological and historical research....

He resigned from Holy Cross in 1965 in protest over the removal of Father Georges Florovsky from the faculty by Archbishop Iacovos. Between 1965 and 1968 Father Romanides served as the pastor of Holy Apostles' Parish in Haverhill, Mass

And Fr. Rominides was on the Joint Commission of the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches. Don't think that they thought he walked on water, but they didn't (and don't) ignore him either.

The priest's historical work was a mess. I certainly will ignore him.

Sic Maria dixit. +December 17, 2011.

Unfortunately, that can't be peer reviewed, nor cited as proof, nor sourced as an authority. Especially when backed, well, backed by nothing.

There's too much to read and learn that IS good and IS reliable and IS accurate to waste time with a bitter pill like Father John.

Well, judging from you posts, if you are spending all that time "to read and learn that IS good and IS reliable and IS accurate," you are keeping it all to yourself. Seems rather gnostic.

If you wasted 1/10 of your time engaging the likes of Fr. John of blessed memory, even to point out where and how he is wrong, you would have something worth reading. Heck, if you wasted 1/100 of your time, you would have nearly 60 posts worth reading, instead of thousands of ranting posts saying nothing more than assertions of "not true! not true!"

I don't like his work because it looks either foolish or dishonest and I don't care which it is frankly.

well then, we should give your criticisms all the consideration due them

Logged

Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

The preservation of the Immaculate Conception, had it been both a spiritual and material preservation of her human nature, would have precluded any need for the second grace of the Assumption.

Your supreme pontiffs et alia specifically say it "was" a spiritual and material preservation of her human nature. That that doesn't make anysense in view of the Assumption, is the point, and your problem.

We die and rot even though we have been baptised into life by the Incarnation who trampled down death by death. However holy we become, we rot. Some few are preserved but they are not always the most holy and it is by a particular grace that they do not rot away to dust.

Again, you fight is with your "supreme pontiff," his "infallibity," and his "magisterium":

5. Now God has willed that the Blessed Virgin Mary should be exempted from this general rule. She, by an entirely unique privilege, completely overcame sin by her Immaculate Conception, and as a result she was not subject to the law of remaining in the corruption of the grave, and she did not have to wait until the end of time for the redemption of her body..

there plenty of others in positions of authority to teach, who cite the existence of "incorruptible saints" as proof of the Assumption, applying the Vatican's maxim of "potuit, decuit, ergo fecit" as they beg the question, but I know that would just get into a pointless (and endless) discussion (again) of your "magisterium" and what is "authentic catholic teaching" or whatever ecclesiastical weasel words you are moved to use.

Your critique does not hold up. I know you need it to so I don't expect you to change but you really are wrong.

You have that rather reversed. But then again, that is nothing new, now, is it?

Logged

Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

That was served up (as EVERYONE agrees, or are you a dissident voice?) straight from "the cathedra."

You will have to take it up with your "magisterium."

"Closely bound" does NOT mean "identical"...

You missed the part where the "magisterium" says that her human nature is no less human than yours or mine...That they say explicitly so I guess you'd not want to post that part...eh?

M.

LOL. Evidently you don't "want to post that part," as you haven't.

"2" is not identical with "4," but closely bound "2+2" and "=4" follows.

Logged

Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

That was served up (as EVERYONE agrees, or are you a dissident voice?) straight from "the cathedra."

You will have to take it up with your "magisterium."

"Closely bound" does NOT mean "identical"...

You missed the part where the "magisterium" says that her human nature is no less human than yours or mine...That they say explicitly so I guess you'd not want to post that part...eh?

M.

LOL. Evidently you don't "want to post that part," as you haven't.

I leave that for you, in your good will, to find as you have found the rest.

sorry, I don't do the homework for those I'm schooling.

Logged

Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

So can we as Orthodox say that Christ inherited our fallen humanity/human nature? Also, what do our RC brethren/sistren think about this statement?

The Catholic Church would say that he took human flesh from his mother, and he died and was buried till his third day resurrection.

So either he died because he was subject to death by his human nature...Or he perfected his flesh at his conception and then un-perfected it so he could die.

Which makes more sense to you? What does Orthodoxy teach about that?

The whole Kenosis thing proving a problem, huh?

Logged

Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

When the holy men and women of Orthodoxy empty themselves what does that mean? Is the nature of their flesh made something other than human?

Because of the incarnation, no.

Logged

Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

I think the word used by the fathers of the Church describing this is usually translated as "condescension" and literally means "to be cast down together with". That is, He took the flesh of His mother in it's state of being subject to the passions and death, never gave in to temptation or let His passions rule over Him, endured death, and fully restored our nature in His resurrection in glory. Without using words like "unperfected", I say that scripturally speaking, it is written that He became like us in all things except for sinning, was made a little lower than the angels, and that He who knew no sin became sin. And then there is the old saying that whatever was not assumed was not healed.

Greetings in that Divine and Most Precious Name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

While I don't believe the Catholic Church intentionally teaches that human nature was corrupted by Sin in the most literal sense, I am quite sure many Catholics have mistakenly gleamed this interpretation and so it has become a common misconception. I would suppose that the Catholic fathers agree very much with the Orthodox fathers in the sense not that human nature has become corrupted in the concrete, tangible sense, rather since the Fall of Mankind the potentiality and propensity for Sin was introduced in the nature of humankind, indeed the nature of all of Creation. Both human nature and Creation remain perfect in static, but we know by experience of life that life is not static, it is in motion. In the static sense of any given instant moment, human nature is not corrupted in any kind of tangible sense (i.e. inclined towards Sin) rather there is perpetually a potentiality for Sin. Again, sin as explained by other posters above is a momentary separation from God. When we are separated from God by Sin, we experience the pains of Sin. But these pains do not corrupt our nature in some kind of cosmic or eternal sense. If this were indeed the case, then Baptism would be an instant becoming of perfection rather then a process of gradual perfecting, and further how could explain the fact that we continue to find ourselves in Sin after our Baptisms? If sin was only the consequence of a tangibly corrupted nature, then mechanically it should seem logical that Sin would cease to exist after the Grace of God inherent in the Mystery of Baptism and Holy Communion restores human nature. However Sin is not a matter of mechanics or logistics, we do not Sin because our human nature was mechanically distorted, marred, or corrupted, rather because the corruption introduced into the Creation and Human nature is not a permanent state of Sin, it is the potentiality to Sin. It is entering Sin into the dice-roll and variable equations of our lives. Before Adam and Eve accepted the invitation to Sin, Sin simply did not exist in human nature. Afterwards, human nature has been forever altered towards this potentiality and propencity to Sin, but we are not all universally condemned in Sins we have yet to commit. That is what I believe folks mistakingly interpret as a "corrupted nature" in that they assume that the effects of Sin were to distort or corrupt in some kind of mechanical or tangible way the nature and reality of being a human being. Sin is not our nature, Sin is simply something we have the ability to do. Our Nature has been altered to allow for Sin to exist and occur, this is true, but Sin has not destroyed our nature. Baptism does not necessarily restore Human nature in a permanent or mechanical sense so much as it infuses through Synergy the Grace of God to OVERCOME our potentiality for Sin. If Sin is a possible variable, Baptism does not remove the variable rather it negates or cross-cancels it out by Grace.

That being said, the Orthodox Fathers then teach that our physical and spiritual nature was not inherently corrupted by Sin, and I feel that in many respects the Catholic Fathers and theologians would agree, its in the popular piety and commoner theology that we find this mix up.

It is like my signature states, "Evil is not a being, it is an accident." St John of Damascus

Stay blessed,habte selassie

Logged

"Yet stand aloof from stupid questionings and geneologies and strifes and fightings about law, for they are without benefit and vain." Titus 3:10

I think the word used by the fathers of the Church describing this is usually translated as "condescension" and literally means "to be cast down together with". That is, He took the flesh of His mother in it's state of being subject to the passions and death, never gave in to temptation or let His passions rule over Him, endured death, and fully restored our nature in His resurrection in glory. Without using words like "unperfected", I say that scripturally speaking, it is written that He became like us in all things except for sinning, was made a little lower than the angels, and that He who knew no sin became sin. And then there is the old saying that whatever was not assumed was not healed.

Yes. This is what I have been taught as well as a Catholic. Jesus takes on fallen nature and redeems it, but while in the process of redeeming it, he is subject to it in terms of being susceptible to death.

The flesh he takes from his mother is subject to death just as the flesh of his mother is subject to death.

And to take it aaaallllll the way back to the issue of the Immaculate Conception, the Mother of God is preserved from the "stain" of original sin but remains fully human susceptible, in the flesh, to corruption and death and pain and suffering and aging and illness.

Tradition tells us that she did not suffer in childbearing nor did she corrupt in the tomb. But she was spared those things by grace and not nature.

When the holy men and women of Orthodoxy empty themselves what does that mean? Is the nature of their flesh made something other than human?

Because of the incarnation, no.

You are the ass-u-me here.

I was asking a question.

And you already got the answer.

Logged

Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

I think the word used by the fathers of the Church describing this is usually translated as "condescension" and literally means "to be cast down together with". That is, He took the flesh of His mother in it's state of being subject to the passions and death, never gave in to temptation or let His passions rule over Him, endured death, and fully restored our nature in His resurrection in glory. Without using words like "unperfected", I say that scripturally speaking, it is written that He became like us in all things except for sinning, was made a little lower than the angels, and that He who knew no sin became sin. And then there is the old saying that whatever was not assumed was not healed.

Yes. This is what I have been taught as well as a Catholic. Jesus takes on fallen nature and redeems it, but while in the process of redeeming it, he is subject to it in terms of being susceptible to death.

The flesh he takes from his mother is subject to death just as the flesh of his mother is subject to death.

Uh, no. He never became subject to ancestral sin, and hence never subject to death just as His mother was subject to death.

And to take it aaaallllll the way back to the issue of the Immaculate Conception, the Mother of God is preserved from the "stain" of original sin but remains fully human susceptible, in the flesh, to corruption and death and pain and suffering and aging and illness.

nor did she corrupt in the tomb. But she was spared those things by grace and not nature.

By her nature, she wasn't spared death.

Logged

Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

I think the word used by the fathers of the Church describing this is usually translated as "condescension" and literally means "to be cast down together with". That is, He took the flesh of His mother in it's state of being subject to the passions and death, never gave in to temptation or let His passions rule over Him, endured death, and fully restored our nature in His resurrection in glory. Without using words like "unperfected", I say that scripturally speaking, it is written that He became like us in all things except for sinning, was made a little lower than the angels, and that He who knew no sin became sin. And then there is the old saying that whatever was not assumed was not healed.

Yes. This is what I have been taught as well as a Catholic. Jesus takes on fallen nature and redeems it, but while in the process of redeeming it, he is subject to it in terms of being susceptible to death.

The flesh he takes from his mother is subject to death just as the flesh of his mother is subject to death.

Uh, no. He never became subject to ancestral sin, and hence never subject to death just as His mother was subject to death.

By her nature, she wasn't spared death.

Uh...nobody said she was.

And the man Jesus certainly did die and he didn't un-do his humanity to do so.

It can be said that while we have not inherited the guilt of Adam's personal sin, because his sin is also of a generic nature, and because the entire human race is possessed of an essential, ontological unity,[12] we participate in it by virtue of our participation in the human race. "The imparting of Original Sin by means of natural heredity should be understood in terms of the unity of the entire human nature, and of the homoousiotitos [13] of all men, who, connected by nature, constitute one mystic whole. Inasmuch as human nature is indeed unique and unbreakable, the imparting of sin from the first-born to the entire human race descended from him is rendered explicable: 'Explicitly, as from the root, the sickness proceeded to the rest of the tree, Adam being the root who had suffered corruption'" [St. Cyril of Alexandria].[14]

I do not understand the distinction. I honestly feel like the Orthodox reaction against this is a well-meaning attack of the straw-man of total depravity, which John Calvin taught. This quote, from Archpriest Golubov, seems to agree that the entirety of humanity has been corrupted - which is what I understood Latins to mean when we say that human nature was corrupted. Not that the state of being human became an evil, but that all men, while men, of which being one is good, also were twisted to be inclined to sin and evil and were born lacking communion with the divine - a situation which needs rectification.

No Catholic teaches that the state of being human is evil - humans are not totally depraved and unable to please God (thanks for that one, Calvin).

Calvin, Luther, Jansen, John Wesley, James Arminius as well as alot of other people in the christian west got it from Saint Augustine. Saint Augustine went further than the other fathers before him in the area of what happened at the fall. He believed that free will was lost at the fall. the other church fathers didn't teach that.

Do you disagree?

Indeed I do. With both you and Father. I don't know how these kinds of ideas get started but they certainly are damaging when they take hold.

M.

Saint Augustine eventually saw the fall as destroying free will:The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Lovehttp://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1302.htm(The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Love)quote:""But this part of the human race to which God has promised pardon and a share in His eternal kingdom, can they be restored through the merit of their own works? God forbid. For what good work can a lost man perform, except so far as he has been delivered from perdition? Can they do anything by the free determination of their own will? Again I say, God forbid. For it was by the evil use of his free-will that man destroyed both it and himself. For, as a man who kills himself must, of course, be alive when he kills himself, but after he has killed himself ceases to live, and cannot restore himself to life; so, when man by his own free-will sinned, then sin being victorious over him, the freedom of his will was lost."

It's by no coincidence that all the western men(Calvin, Luther, Jansen, John Wesley, James Arminius as well as alot of other people in the christian west got it from Saint Augustine) I named above believed the way they did. All of them were following the Augustinian tradition.

The older Saint Augustine got the more he started to sound like this.

« Last Edit: January 02, 2012, 05:36:04 AM by jnorm888 »

Logged

"loving one's enemies does not mean loving wickedness, ungodliness, adultery, or theft. Rather, it means loving the theif, the ungodly, and the adulterer." Clement of Alexandria 195 A.D.

It can be said that while we have not inherited the guilt of Adam's personal sin, because his sin is also of a generic nature, and because the entire human race is possessed of an essential, ontological unity,[12] we participate in it by virtue of our participation in the human race. "The imparting of Original Sin by means of natural heredity should be understood in terms of the unity of the entire human nature, and of the homoousiotitos [13] of all men, who, connected by nature, constitute one mystic whole. Inasmuch as human nature is indeed unique and unbreakable, the imparting of sin from the first-born to the entire human race descended from him is rendered explicable: 'Explicitly, as from the root, the sickness proceeded to the rest of the tree, Adam being the root who had suffered corruption'" [St. Cyril of Alexandria].[14]

I do not understand the distinction. I honestly feel like the Orthodox reaction against this is a well-meaning attack of the straw-man of total depravity, which John Calvin taught. This quote, from Archpriest Golubov, seems to agree that the entirety of humanity has been corrupted - which is what I understood Latins to mean when we say that human nature was corrupted. Not that the state of being human became an evil, but that all men, while men, of which being one is good, also were twisted to be inclined to sin and evil and were born lacking communion with the divine - a situation which needs rectification.

No Catholic teaches that the state of being human is evil - humans are not totally depraved and unable to please God (thanks for that one, Calvin).

Calvin, Luther, Jansen, John Wesley, James Arminius as well as alot of other people in the christian west got it from Saint Augustine. Saint Augustine went further than the other fathers before him in the area of what happened at the fall. He believed that free will was lost at the fall. the other church fathers didn't teach that.

Do you disagree?

Indeed I do. With both you and Father. I don't know how these kinds of ideas get started but they certainly are damaging when they take hold.

M.

Saint Augustine eventually saw the fall as destroying free will:The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Lovehttp://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1302.htm(The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Love)quote:""But this part of the human race to which God has promised pardon and a share in His eternal kingdom, can they be restored through the merit of their own works? God forbid. For what good work can a lost man perform, except so far as he has been delivered from perdition? Can they do anything by the free determination of their own will? Again I say, God forbid. For it was by the evil use of his free-will that man destroyed both it and himself. For, as a man who kills himself must, of course, be alive when he kills himself, but after he has killed himself ceases to live, and cannot restore himself to life; so, when man by his own free-will sinned, then sin being victorious over him, the freedom of his will was lost."

It's by no coincidence that all the western men(Calvin, Luther, Jansen, John Wesley, James Arminius as well as alot of other people in the christian west got it from Saint Augustine) I named above believed the way they did. All of them were following the Augustinian tradition.

The older Saint Augustine got the more he started to sound like this.

Wow!! You are ripping this out of context and reading into things that are not there. This is NOT the teaching of total depravity.

Hannah Arendt...a Jewish scholar without an axe to grind...saw more of the truth in St. Augustine than you demonstrate here. It's the influence of Father John and it is a bad one because it is inaccurate.

It can be said that while we have not inherited the guilt of Adam's personal sin, because his sin is also of a generic nature, and because the entire human race is possessed of an essential, ontological unity,[12] we participate in it by virtue of our participation in the human race. "The imparting of Original Sin by means of natural heredity should be understood in terms of the unity of the entire human nature, and of the homoousiotitos [13] of all men, who, connected by nature, constitute one mystic whole. Inasmuch as human nature is indeed unique and unbreakable, the imparting of sin from the first-born to the entire human race descended from him is rendered explicable: 'Explicitly, as from the root, the sickness proceeded to the rest of the tree, Adam being the root who had suffered corruption'" [St. Cyril of Alexandria].[14]

I do not understand the distinction. I honestly feel like the Orthodox reaction against this is a well-meaning attack of the straw-man of total depravity, which John Calvin taught. This quote, from Archpriest Golubov, seems to agree that the entirety of humanity has been corrupted - which is what I understood Latins to mean when we say that human nature was corrupted. Not that the state of being human became an evil, but that all men, while men, of which being one is good, also were twisted to be inclined to sin and evil and were born lacking communion with the divine - a situation which needs rectification.

No Catholic teaches that the state of being human is evil - humans are not totally depraved and unable to please God (thanks for that one, Calvin).

Calvin, Luther, Jansen, John Wesley, James Arminius as well as alot of other people in the christian west got it from Saint Augustine. Saint Augustine went further than the other fathers before him in the area of what happened at the fall. He believed that free will was lost at the fall. the other church fathers didn't teach that.

Do you disagree?

Indeed I do. With both you and Father. I don't know how these kinds of ideas get started but they certainly are damaging when they take hold.

M.

Saint Augustine eventually saw the fall as destroying free will:The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Lovehttp://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1302.htm(The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Love)quote:""But this part of the human race to which God has promised pardon and a share in His eternal kingdom, can they be restored through the merit of their own works? God forbid. For what good work can a lost man perform, except so far as he has been delivered from perdition? Can they do anything by the free determination of their own will? Again I say, God forbid. For it was by the evil use of his free-will that man destroyed both it and himself. For, as a man who kills himself must, of course, be alive when he kills himself, but after he has killed himself ceases to live, and cannot restore himself to life; so, when man by his own free-will sinned, then sin being victorious over him, the freedom of his will was lost."

It's by no coincidence that all the western men(Calvin, Luther, Jansen, John Wesley, James Arminius as well as alot of other people in the christian west got it from Saint Augustine) I named above believed the way they did. All of them were following the Augustinian tradition.

The older Saint Augustine got the more he started to sound like this.

Wow!! You are ripping this out of context and reading into things that are not there. This is NOT the teaching of total depravity.

Hannah Arendt...a Jewish scholar without an axe to grind...saw more of the truth in St. Augustine than you demonstrate here. It's the influence of Father John and it is a bad one because it is inaccurate.

M.

It's not out of context! Everyone and their grandmother knows Saint Augustine came up with the doctrine called "Total Inability!" You obviously don't understand what Calvinists teach nor what other western Christians teach in regards to this issue!

Total depravity does not mean utter depravity. It does not mean that someone is the worse they could possibly be. No, look at what real calvinists have to say about the issue!

"Augustine argued that there are four states, which are derived from the Scripture, that correspond to the four states of man in relation to sin: (a) able to sin, able not to sin (posse peccare, posse non peccare); (b) not able not to sin (non posse non peccare); (c) able not to sin (posse non peccare); and (d) unable to sin (non posse peccare). The first state corresponds to the state of man in innocency, before the Fall; the second the state of the natural man after the Fall; the third the state of the regenerate man; and the fourth the glorified man.

Augustine's description of the person after the fall "not able not to sin (non posse non peccare)" is what it means for humanity to have lost the liberty of the will. Fallen man's will is free from coercion yes, but not free from necessity... ie. he sins of necessity due to a corruption of nature.

With this in mind we better understand the following statements of Augustine:"

Logged

"loving one's enemies does not mean loving wickedness, ungodliness, adultery, or theft. Rather, it means loving the theif, the ungodly, and the adulterer." Clement of Alexandria 195 A.D.

I had a discussion Friday with a Roman Catholic attending a Byzantine Catholic Church who is strongly considering converting to Eastern Orthodoxy (either through the OCA or the GOA). He had some interesting and unusual things to say about original sin. The most intriguing of these to me was his assertion that Eastern Orthodoxy teaches that human nature was not corrupted by the Fall. Man's nature was always good, but because man was born into a fallen world where it was possible that he die, man was inclined to sin.

So, in contrast to the Latin teaching that Adam fell, his nature was corrupted, and he passed a corrupted nature onto his children, which Christ then purified through his Incarnation, man's nature was never corrupted but merely the world in which men lived was corrupted.

Furthermore, he insisted that there was no belief in concupiscence in Orthodoxy - man is only inclined to sin because he is born into a fallen world where he is mortal.

Is this really Eastern Orthodoxy's teaching on original sin? It would be nice if I could tell him he is becoming a heretic to both our religions . . .

Hence, most simply, after Adam's sin, was human nature corrupted or was it not?

For clarity, Catholics acknowledge that human nature is, in itself, good, as it is a creation of God and God the Son assumed a human nature - meaning that it obviously cannot be an evil, however, because of the fall, man receives a human nature which is good, but at the same time corrupted.

As an anecdote, before serving in Great Vespers last night, I was praying from a booklet, "Orthodox Prayers before Communion" published by the Holy Myrrhbearers Monastery (we have them in the pews here), and I noticed that in St. Basil's prayer before communion he said, " . . . and through Your own Blood You have renewed our human nature which is corrupted by sin."

So, please, it would be most helpful to me if I could gain some Orthodox perspectives on this.

Agree that wouldn`t be nice.. I also think that you(WetCatechumen) might be misrepresenting him.. Orthodoxy does not believe that we inherit any guilt from Adam, but the consequences of his sin... Orthodoxy does not believe in Original Sin, but Ancestral Sin... Orthodoxy is less legalistic and more realistic..